as they respectively came to the throne; notwithstanding the individual differences which characterised them. This brings us to A.D. 235. The main idea, therefore, which pervades the whole of the religious movement over which they presided will be found in the work written by Philostratus of Lemnos, under the title of The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, and ordered to be written by Julia Domna. We shall now proceed to examine this strange history.
II.
Apollonius was born in Tyana, a Greek city of Cappadocia, but it is not certain in what year. From several coincidences, however, in his work, we may conclude that the time of his birth was nearly identical with that of Jesus Christ. During the period which preceded his birth his mother was favoured with a kind of annunciation, sent by the god of divination and penetrative science. Proteus appeared to her, and informed her that the child of whom she was then pregnant was an incarnation of himself. When the child was
